Religion as Socialization - What does the Holy Qur'an say?

Does
Islam in its Book the Holy Qur'an condone socialization as religion?

There
are three possible answers to this: yes, no, maybe. That covers the
full gamut of answers.

The
following verses seem to suggest that the unequivocal answer of the
Holy Qur'an to this question is a loud NO, and there is no other
answer:

[
here is some homework assignment for the reader for their own due
diligence --- can you find and enumerate those
verses in context of socialization and blindly
following the religion of ancestors? ]

The
condemnation of the above verses is universal and categorical --- the
deprecation does not say that it only applies to non-Muslims and
obvious idol worshippers alone, that Muslims born into Muslim homes
are absolved from its condemnation, that it is okay for Muslims to
follow whatever socialization context they are born into if it is
labeled “Islam”. It is not a conditional condemnation
dependent on what beliefs one is born into. It is a categorical and
principled condemnation and applies to all.

What
is instead countenanced in the Holy Qur'an is to discover and follow
the unadulterated religion brought by the Messengers of God, and not
what is easily aliased and canonized into culture, religious
literature, pulpits, and the religion of the state, by the mind of
man as the religion of God. To correctly distinguish between the
unadulterated religion of God and the socialized religion made by man
is mankind's open challenge.

Consequently,
due to the unequivocal and universal condemnation of the Holy Qur'an
against blindly following the religion of one's forefathers, whatever
religion or belief system that may be, every Muslim, both man and
woman, born into a Muslim home really ought to introspect whether
they too are fundamentally socialized into their religion and
mistaking their man-made beliefs and the age-old practices of their
ancestors as the religion of God? Specifically, socialized not just
into being a Muslim by the accident of birth, but also socialized
into one of the many Muslim sects that they open their eyes into,
mainly under the rubric of the two macro Muslim sects, Shia and
Sunni, which are further subdivided into myriad other subgroups and
subsects, each one more self-righteous than the other?

Again,
this introspection can only lead to one of the following answers:
yes, no, maybe (or partially). That covers the full gamut of answers.

If
they don't answer No, i.e., if they truthfully answer yes or
maybe (or partially) socialized into their religion of birth, then it
behooves a rational mind to reflect on how he or she might rise above
that socialization into one's religion of birth and move towards the
unadulterated religion of God. An irrational mind is absolved from
such obligation because it is fundamentally ill-equipped for this
task.

If
they answer No, meaning they boldly aver that they chose their
religion by sheer due diligence, then it still behooves a rational
mind to prove that assertion that one is in fact not socialized into
one's religion and belief system of birth, at least to one's own
intellectual, spiritual and emotional satisfaction --- for religion
is always intensely personal choice and one need not justify that
choice to anyone else but to oneself.

The
problem inherent in seeking such self-satisfaction and
self-justification are of course many fold, which, as every astute
student of psychology knows, inevitably lead to being emotionally
deluded and subconsciously subjective despite all overt pretenses to
objectivity. These pitfalls include: the problem itself being
self-referential and thus inherently
subjective; prone to confirmation bias; data availability bias;
perception bias; emotional bias; spiritual bias; to mention just a
few psychological and subconscious cataracts that get in the way by
self-servingly “preloading” that quest for
self-satisfaction with one's own preferences and presuppositions
without being consciously aware of it. This is the most common
instinctual trait (or failing) due to socialization by birth and
psychological predisposition towards what
one deems to be one's own, which is whatever one opens one's eyes
into, that has led to such diversity of beliefs and practices among
Muslims despite all sects and subsects espousing the same singular
Divine Book of Islam, the Holy Qur'an. The truth of these words is
beyond doubt. It is self-evident. And quite empirical.

As
one may perceptively note, this fundamental question of religion as
socialization is orthogonal to the banal question of amicable mutual
co-existence --- for the latter is but a truism, a platitude. One
can, and sensibly should, always seek to co-exist with those whom one
disagrees with, whether or not the disagreement is religious,
scientific, philosophical, or petty. That is but a fundamental human
right to be able to live in peace without being forced to conform to
the thoughts and beliefs of others. Whether or not this basic human
right is honored by the systems of power that control human behavior
is an orthogonal question to the question at hand.

Try
not to confuse the two questions. The question under discussion is
not how to live amicably with those whom we disagree with, and for
which Surah Al-Maeda verse 5:48
has given a categorical prescription in the most straightforward
language, but whether each one of us is following the religion of our
ancestors which just happens to come with the label “Islam”
in the mistaken belief that we are in fact following the
unadulterated religion of Islam contained in its scripture the Holy
Qur'an.

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